Decision Making Under Pressure

This learning resource describes the decision making processes relevant to incident management.

It outlines some useful techniques for incident management decision making. In addition to the effective use of AIIMS principles, rules-of-thumb (heuristics), SOPs, and decision support systems are useful, as are aide -memoires, self-management strategies, worst case scenario thinking, and effective briefing and debriefing.

This resource is not a training program. It is intended that agencies will use the content within the resource to support professional development activities, training or coaching of their personnel.

Decision making is particularly difficult for incident management teams (IMTs) facing an emergency. They are often faced with high levels of uncertainty and constantly changing conditions, yet their decisions are time critical, with major consequences for people’s lives and property. Decisions may require input from various team members, and from scattered information, variable in its quality, its quantity, and its reliability.

IMTs have to make decisions in wide ranging conditions, so various models and processes may be more applicable at different points of time (e.g. initial escalating phase vs. steady state), and in different circumstances (e.g. routine vs. novel incidents). Incident management personnel can better monitor and manage their team’s decision making, and identify potential threats to effective processes if they understand what’s important in decision making.

This resource has been developed to support professional development, training programs and coaching for:

• people that work in and around IMTs, as well as personnel in functional roles within IMTs;
• trainers who want an introduction to the theory about decision making in order to build their own understanding;
• individuals who want some professional development in this area.